1. Field
The field of the invention is garments to be worn on the body, including portions covering the buttock and crotch regions, and, more particularly, crotch constructions for such garments.
2. State of the Art
Garments for beach, dancing, exercise and similar highly active use are widely constructed of highly stretchable very lightweight material referred to as "stretch", "doublestretch", "spandex", and the like. Such cloth is normally woven from various synthetic textile elastic fibers that are long-chain polymers with a high percent of a segmented polyurethane, for example. Typically, the material stretches very freely to be highly formfitting without associated excessive tightness and discomfort. The same free stretch characteristics enables the material to easily give to accommodate relative motions of body parts without binding. However, the stretchability has in the crotch and buttock area lead to uncomfortable persistent bunching of the material into the median cleft of the body. The problem of discomfort in this area exists with lightweight non-stretchable materials also. Various clothing constructions have been proposed which provide comfort in the female buttock and crotch area. Examples include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,880,424, 3,852,828, 3,909,847, 3,044,467 and 2,717,388. The disclosed solutions principally provide garment crotch softness by use of padding, or improved body formfit by garment cut and proportioning. None address the cleft bunching problem to which many garments, especially those of the highly elastic stretch fabrics, are prone.
There remains a need for construction of garments of stretch fabrics and other materials in the crotch and buttock area which permits the utilization of desirable materials without concomitant bunching and chafing.